Municipal Winemakers

Wine-Hand

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:01:00 -0700

Oh man! I really messed up my hand at work.Made you look. Seriously though, while I am not a burn victim, this is what a hand looks like after swirling wine in a glass for 9 hours straight (pretty much) and marking barrels with chalk. You don't want to see the wine-mouth photo!

Santa Barbara Locals are Awesome

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:46:00 -0700

Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar Reviews Muni Reisling

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:46:00 -0700

2007 Municipal Winemakers Riesling Bright White Santa Barbara County

($15) Pale straw. Lemon, lime and talc on the nose, with a faint hint of kerosene adding interest. Light, refreshingly bitter citrus pith and apple skin flavors nicely focused, with brisk minerals adding bite. A clean, focused riesling that finishes with plumper melon and peach character.

New Site

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:19:00 -0700

This is our new website! It is running on Vin65 platform. We hope you like it.

The Future... Is Now

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:18:00 -0700

If you are thirsty for wine and looking for an exceptional night out, you should come on down the SB courthouse this Saturday. Elements, the resto, is putting on their second annual futures event. The tix are $75, but that includes delish dinner and access to wine bargains from tiny producers (like the Muni). Here is what the SB Independent has to say:

Attendees enter through the County Courthouse’s archway and then are set loose on the entire first floor, where wineries line the walls and a full dinner buffet is served. “It’s a beautiful location inside the Courthouse,” said Winchester. “For a reception, you can’t beat it. There will be 35 wineries—buyers must purchase at least six bottles per selection—and perhaps more than 500 people. It’s “classy” attire too, so men are urged to wear sport coats and ladies to wear cocktail dresses.

More details are here, on the elements website.

Cultish Buzz

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:17:00 -0700

Matt Kettmann from the Santa Barbara Independent gave us a nice little write-up in their Vintner's Festival Preview:

Municipal Winemakers: Recently unveiled during a Funk Zone warehouse tasting party, Dave Potter’s creatively named and decorated wines are full of youthful vigor and cultish buzz. Get jazzed on the Pale Pink (grenache and cinsaut) or the Dark Red (syrah from Camp Four and Tierra Alta with cabernet from Star Lane), but make sure to try the Bright White, Potter’s exciting take on dry riesling.

Check out the the whole review here...

Muni Merch

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:17:00 -0700

Order t-shirts or DIY Silkscreen printing book in our Merch section of the webstore. More really awesome stuff is coming soon!!

Release Party Success!!

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:16:00 -0700

Municipal Winemakers Spring Release 2009 from Robert Carlmark on Vimeo.� Rob Carlmark, Meteorologist, made this little video for me. �Check out the photos page for some pics. �Upload your own pics on the Muni facebook page.

Spring is Here

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:14:00 -0700

Buds have begun popping all around Santa Barbara County vineyards and the delicate, young shoots are being protected from the morning chill. Continued warmth this week should speed bud break throughout the area. Bud break marks the annual spring season when dormant vines spring back to life, and when grape growers roll out their frost-protection measures as evening and daytime temperatures vary greatly. Last year was a gnarly one for frost and most of the growers are being extra cautious this season. Opening of the buds varies by grape and by climate and location, so Chardonnay in a warmer area will be out way before a late ripener like Cabernet, even more so in a cooler area. Growers use overhead irrigation to coat the plants with a protective layer of water that freezes into ice when the temperature drops, keeping the bud inside the icicle from freezing - think igloo. They also draw warm air out of the atmosphere with wind machines to fend off a freeze. Hopefully this season shapes up to be less punishing than last year, however, a big vintage means lots of supply in a softening market, so let's hope that it is not too big of a harvest. In short, all I am asking for is perfect weather for the next six months and not too little of a crop to keep the growers happy, and not too big of a crop to keep the winemakers happy. Not too much to ask!

Spring Release Party... The Latest

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:13:00 -0700

Ok, so here is the deal... This date is set. Next weekend, the Muni will have it's first Spring Release Party. It is going to be held in an awesome warehouse/art studio in the 'Funk Zone' of Santa Barbara. There are going to be plenty of fun and interesting people, music, some crazy-tasty nibbles and hot-off-the-press new release wines. Here is what I am talking about: 2008 Bright White - Rice Paper Wrapped Prawns with Fresh Mint and Lillikoi Sauce 2008 Pale Pink - Corn Fritters With Cured Salmon and Crème Fraiche 2007 Bright Red - Kalamata, Moroccan, and Roman Baked Olives With Italian Cured Meats 2007 Dark Red - Thyme Marinated Mushrooms with Cipollini, and Peppercorn Dusted Crostini 2008 Sweetie - Blue Stilton with Popovers, Grilled Apples, and Candied Pecans Email me or RSVP on facebook if you are coming. Wear a sweater, cuz it might be chilly.

Watch Out!

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:13:00 -0700

We received a nice nod from Hip Tastes author Courtney Cochran, in which she called us a 'Winery to Watch'. �In Courtney's words:

Each year I attend countless wine tasting events where I am inevitably plied with the wines of hundreds if not thousands of producers from our own backyard and the far corners of the globe.� Along the way, I sip, swirl and spit the likes of sparkling wines from Brazil, sweet wines from Sonoma, soulful reds from Lake County and intriguing, sea-scented whites from Galicia.� I also shake hands, take notes, snap pictures and invariably return home with piles upon piles of notes enthusing about the nuances of new wines and their various vintners. What follows is a list of some of the more memorable wines I've sampled lately. Municipal Winemakers - Santa Barbara, CA Dave Potter, assistant winemaker at Fess Parker Winery, has proven to be quite the tour de force when it comes to producing under his own label,�Municipal Winemakers�. Backed by eye-catching design (his cool label look-and-feel changes with each vintage), a smart web site brimming with tongue-in-cheek promotions and a dedicated Facebook following, his fruity, food-friendly wines such as the 2008 Bright White Dry Riesling ($17) are well positioned to take adventurous drinkers by palate-pleasing surprise.

Read the whole article here...

New Product Development

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:12:00 -0700

We Muni Winemakers have been working hard for *you* lately. �We have a whole heap of new wines just bottled up - four wines, to be precise - and they are all something to be very proud of. The radical typography-driven new labels were designed by Print Liberation in Philly. �You can buy their DIY screen printing book in our Bottle Shop now.� We have been trying hard to keep a lid on these and not tell you about them until they finish their 'Bottle Shock' phase, but they are tasting good and are ready for action. � Hopefully you can make it to the party on April 4th to get the lowdown on the wines and taste them paired up with some food. �If not, click on the pics below for more info or to start ordering away... � � �

Out the Door, Heaven's Dog

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:10:00 -0700

Next time you are in San Francisco, and in the mood for some delicious Chinese food... check out the newly-opened sister restaurant of�San Francisco's iconic Vietnamese restaurant�Slanted Door�- it's called�Heaven's Dog. � From thrillist.com: "H-Dog's an upscale Chinese finger foodery, with a moddishly couched lounge and slick cypress bar separated by a woven wall of maple and steel, plus a glassed-off private dining room and an all-day noodle shop. Grub on bunned pork belly & scallions or beef/watercress/chili Szechuan wontons," then wash it down with some 2008 Bright White Riesling. Otherwise, you can head to Out the Door, which is the cheaper, more accessible sibling of �the Slanted Door. �It offers equally tasty food, including famed dishes like the chicken claypot in caramel sauce, and cellophane noodles with Dungeness crab, at gentler prices. �Gulp that gear down with some '08 Bright White while you are there, yum!

Spring Shipment

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:10:00 -0700

Attention Club Awesome members - your shipment is about a month away. �We are putting 2007 Dark Red in the bottle on Tuesday (2/17) and will ship it in the middle of March, along with a bottle of the '07 Pale Pink which is tasting great right now. �If you are not a member and you are totally missing out, don't worry... you can sign up here � March is a month of sunny days that can still carry a little winter chill, so drink the rose on a warm sunny afternoon, and the Dark Red after you put on your sweater. � More about Dark Red to come...

Tron Guy, Wine Reviewer

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:09:00 -0700

This is our first celebrity endorsement! �Everybody knows that Tron Guy is Awesome, but I wonder what he would have to say about Muni Wines. �Oh, you do too?? �Check out his review below. From: jay***@gmail.com Subject: Re: Wine Review Date: February 3, 2009 9:06:25 AM PST To: dave@municipalwinemakers.com

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Dave Potter // Municipal Winemakers�<dave@municipalwinemakers.com> wrote:

Dont worry about the wine knowledge, I am asking all my friends to write reviews, who don't necessarily know anything about wine.

Here you go... I'm not a wine snob (or an oenophile, either, if you think there's a difference). I drink wine because it makes food taste better; beyond that, I don't know much of anything about it. Speaking to me of notes of cassis and kerosene (!), or round tannins, gets the same reaction that I would get from the average person if I spoke about the intricacies of multiprocessor emulation integrity on an SMP host computer. Given that background, I was more than a little surprised to be asked to review Municipal Winemakers' 2007 Bright Red and Bright White wines. I'm known for lots of things, true, but wine reviews aren't any of them. Still, if someone's going to offer me a couple of bottles of wine in return for writing about what I think of them, I'm not going to say no. The short version is that my taste buds tell me the kind of people who turn up their noses at wines that don't have four-figure price tags or really obscure names from the south of France will turn up their noses at these two...and will miss out on some really good wine. I was mildly surprised at the screw tops. (Wine snobs will stop reading here, and say "ewww!".) I looked past that, since I'm no wine snob, and my attention was drawn to the back label on the bottle. That's one of the most informative labels I've ever read on anything, wine or otherwise. The source of the grapes, the processing into wine, and its analysis and bottling are all described in what I assume are as complete detail as will fit on the label. I skipped the tasting notes (more of those round tannins), but the list of food matches was a very pleasant surprise. Remember, to me wine is something that makes food taste better, and here is someone who actually wants to help me make those choices! I wish more folks would do that. My roommate and I tried the Bright White first. The "food matches" section on the label suggested spicy foods, so we first paired it with a chicken breast stuffed with jalapeno and cheese. The wine didn't take over the meal, but it was definitely a fine compliment to the spice, and didn't fade into the background. The other meal for it was a cold chef's salad, and there the wine was definitely the star of the show. It was interesting but didn't go wildly overboard. The Bright Red's label suggested gamey meats, smoky barbecue, blackened cajun chicken, and thin crust pizza. We tried it first with steak sprinkled with mesquite butter seasoning, and it worked pretty well, but it was much more successful with a couple of thin crust pizzas. I'd love to try it with smokey barbecue some time, but that's pretty scarce in rural southern Minnesota where I live. Both times, though, it went along with the rest of the meal very nicely, not drawing undue attention to itself, just being part of the whole thing. One bit both of us noticed: These wines have a total absence of the harsh alcohol note that just about every other wine I've ever had has carried with it, especially if too much is swallowed at one time. I tried pushing that boundary intentionally, and the wine was still well-behaved. My roommate's comment is that they're dangerous: you don't notice the alcohol at all. The Municipal Winemakers web site says that their goal is to be the first empty bottle on the table. I think they've achieved it - except, possibly, at a party of wine snobs. The rest of us will just enjoy and feel a little sorry that they're missing out on something good. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://www.hercules-390.org http://www.tronguy.net (Yes, that's me!) http://jmaynard.livejournal.com